Tag Archive for: North Dakota

EXCLUSIVE: Harris Campaign, Google Could Face Lawsuit After Fake News Headline Scheme

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WDAY Radio, a local news outlet in Fargo, North Dakota, is considering legal action after the Kamala Harris campaign deceptively edited WDAY headlines to make it look like they supported her in an ad campaign, its president told the Daily Caller.

The Harris campaign has been editing news headlines and descriptions within Google search ads to make it appear as if major news organizations explicitly support her, a bombshell Axios report revealed Tuesday.

WDAY was the only family-owned outlet listed in the report. Other outlets who had their content manipulated by Harris’ team included Reuters, the Associated Press, NPR, CNN, The Guardian, The Independent and more.

WDAY’s President blasted Google and the Harris campaign for the deception in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller.

“We feel insulted and violated by what was done here,” Steve Hallstrom, the President and Managing Partner of Flag Family Media, which owns WDAY Radio, told the Daily Caller.

“You have a political campaign that used our news brand and our URL to effectively lie to people about the headline we wrote,” Hallstrom said. “They lied to every single person that saw that ad. It’s misleading, it’s dishonest, and it hurts us as the company, our news brand. So as of today, we’re starting to make some calls here. We are considering all of our options here, including legal action.”

The Harris campaign used three variations of an advertisement which linked to WDAY’s website. The ads ran with the headlines “Harris Picks Tim Walz – 215,000 MN Families Win,” “Learn About VP Pick Tim Walz – Harris Picks Tim Walz,” and “Harris Picks Tim Walz – Tim Walz Tapped For VP,” according to the Google Ads Transparency Center.

The advertisements linked to real articles by the news organizations in question — but the articles did not have those headlines, nor did they include parts of the text included underneath.

“We never wrote anything close to what is alleged here,” Hallstrom said. “They took two different unrelated stories that we did have on our website, sort of mashed them together, and then from there, they rewrote a few words to make it look like our news organization was cheering on the selection of Walz.”

Hallstrom shared the two news stories he believes the campaign manipulated with the Daily Caller. The stories ran the headlines “Walz selected as Kamala Harris’ VP pick for 2024 Election” and “Minnesota Child Tax Credit benefits 215,000 Minnesota families.”

The ads don’t violate Google’s policies, the company told Axios, though some of them appeared without necessary sponsorship disclosures due to a “glitch,” a Google spokesperson said.

“I’ve heard the excuses about how this meets the approval of the Google Ad criteria people, and I don’t care,” Hallstrom said. “When you see that ad, you may understand that it’s an ad, that any reasonable human being would look at that and say, ‘Oh, the campaign, they found a story or headline on a website that’s good for them. Who would not use that? Who wouldn’t use that?’ But that’s not what happened here,” he continued.

Other outlets said they were wholly unaware of the seemingly-duplicitous ad campaign.

“AP was neither aware of this practice nor would we allow these to run on our website,” an AP spokesperson told the Daily Caller.

“We were unaware Reuters was being featured in these advertisements. We are looking into the matter,” Reuters told the Caller.

“It is entirely wrong for anyone to put fake headlines under ‘The Independent’ brand,” a spokesperson for the outlet told the Caller. “We object fiercely and believe it is undermining of what politics and journalism should be about. It is misleading to muddle fake headlines with any campaign trying to persuade people to vote in an election, and must be widely condemned. We will be seeking their removal.”

Hallstrom questioned why the Harris campaign would believe the ads are a good idea to begin with.

“There are things that are right and there are things that are wrong, and this clearly is wrong. This is clearly leading, it’s clearly deceptive, it’s dishonest, and it was done obviously recklessly without thinking about what’s really happening here. And I don’t know who on the Harris staff made the decision that this was a good strategy. But I can’t believe that on the whole that that organization, that campaign would, top to bottom, feel like this is a tactful and a principled approach to getting the word out about their candidate,” he said.

The scandal occurs at a time when Harris is facing increased scrutiny for her lack of meaningful engagement with the press.

In the three-plus weeks since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, she has yet to sit down for an interview with any members of the press. Her lack of availability prompted the Washington Post Editorial Board to publish a list of questions they’d like to ask her.

“We don’t want to let this go. We want to fight on this one,” Hallstrom concluded.

The Daily Caller reached out to Google and a representative for the Harris campaign, but did not hear back by time of publication.

AUTHOR

Robert McGreevy

Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

THE ISLAMIZATION OF NORTH DAKOTA: The Islamic Attack in Fargo Shows the Impact of Refugee Settlement

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Three blocks from where Mohamad Barakat opened fire on police officers and firefighters, the Islamic Society of Fargo-Moorhead squats across from a school bus company. Nearby are other elements of the new enclave like the Somali Community Development group which offers English and citizenship classes and the Al Hamdi Restaurant from whose vicinity an eyewitness reported hearing the shots that took the life of one police officer and wounded two others.

Officially authorities claim to be baffled by Mohamad’s decision to open fire on cops and firefighters, but the decision by the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service and the bomb squad to search Mohamad’s apartment suggests that they privately have an explosive motive in mind.

“The first thing we always want to know in a situation like this is, ‘Why?” Why would somebody do this?’” Chief David Zibolski wondered. Perhaps he should ask in Fargo’s own Little Mogadishu and inquire of the politicians who turned Fargo into a refugee camp.

If Mohamad acted in the name of Islam, it would not be the first terror attack from Fargo.

In 2016, Dahir Adan, a Somali refugee who penetrated the country along with a massive family that was tragically resettled in Fargo, went on a stabbing spree in a St. Cloud, MN mall. The Somali refugee had gone around the mall shouting “Allahu Akbar” dedicating the violence to his Islamic deity, and demanding to know if potential targets were Muslims before stabbing them.

ISIS claimed credit for the attack after Adam, like Mohamad, was fatally shot and killed, but not until after he stabbed 10 Americans. Fargo Muslims however quickly rushed to play the victim.

“Somali mall workers are afraid to go to their jobs today. I was even afraid to use public restrooms,” Hukun Abdullahi, a local nonprofit leader, had claimed.

Moorhead Mayor Del Rae Williams admitted that her biggest concern from the Muslim terrorist attack was that, “the more we make, you know, these kind of things an issue, the more people are abusive to (refugees) publicly.”

Police Chief David Todd denied, “I don’t have any indication that radicalization is occurring here in Fargo.” Seven years later, Officer Jake Wallin, who had survived Afghanistan and Iraq, was murdered by a Muslim attacker in Fargo. There’s never any indication until someone dies.

The violent attacks by Mohamad Barakat and Dahir Adan may surprise people who still think of Fargo, North Dakota as quintessentially American. Refugee resettlement has changed that.

8% of Fargo is foreign born. Much of that population comes from the Middle East and Islamic areas in Africa like Sudan and Somalia. Even much of the European refugee contingent is Bosnian. The massive influx of refugee resettlement allowed local politicians to boast that Fargo was growing much faster than the rest of the state or the country.

Fargo’s population shot up from 74,000 in 1990 to 90,000 in 2000 to 128,000 today. Somalis flooded Fargo, as did Iraqis, Bosnians and Bangladeshis. Amid the pure snows rose mosques, ethnic welfare nonprofits, Halal markets and other outposts of the new population.

By 2000, six hundred Somali families occupied Fargo, by 2004, Somalis outnumbered Hispanics in the Fargo public school system. Refugee resettlement, led by Lutheran Social Services, continued bombarding the state with foreign migrants, 70% of them embedded into the Fargo area.

“Millennials who are increasingly working in these jobs like to have a multicultural area that has differences in people,” Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney contended. “We really need a diverse population to be more like a normal American city.”

When Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn had warned that millions of taxpayer dollars were being spent on refugee resettlement and that the area was becoming more dangerous, Somalis launched a recall campaign. Piepkorn has since been stripped of Deputy Mayor status.

Little wonder that few elected officials have had the courage to speak out against what is being done to Fargo and North Dakota.

Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, its coffers swollen by dumping migrants from Islamic terror states on the area, suddenly faced a dieback under the Trump administration. The organization filed for bankruptcy and shut down in 2021, but rather than offering any relief, things actually got worse for Fargo and North Dakota.

Under Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, the former head of Lutheran Social Services, became the Executive Policy Director at the state’s Department of Human Services. Burgum, who is now running for president, announced that the state would take over refugee resettlement from Lutheran Social Services. Burgum had previously turned down an offer from the Trump administration to allow governors to end the practice of refugee dumping.

While Gov. Burgum claimed that the state would handle the invasion more responsibly than Lutheran Social Services had, bringing in the head of LSS put the lie to any such notion. Gov. Burgum had proclaimed that April would be Arab American Heritage Month, not to honor the Christian Lebanese, actual refugees who had first fled Islamic terror to move to North Dakota, but those Muslims who “built the first mosque in the United States of America.”

By 2022, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service North Dakota had taken over for the LSS and 78 Afghans, along with Syrians, Somalis and Iraqis were being resettled in the state.

That same year Rep. Hamida Dakane, who wears a hijab, became the first Somali legislator in the state House of Representatives from a district in Fargo. Dakane had found fame after an alleged vandalism incident at the Moorhead Fargo Islamic Center, holding up a “Hate Has No Home in Moorhead” sign as representatives of “Lutheran, Catholic, Presbyterian and Satanism” movements gathered to help. Then she joined Fargo’s Human Rights Commission.

“I am not representing a Muslim state,” Dakane, who entered this country on a student visa, noted. “There is a lot of things in Islam that doesn’t align with Democrats, but that doesn’t apply to the community.”

Mohamad Barakat may have had less patience waiting for North Dakota to become Islamic.

Fargo is slowly getting there. Somali restaurants, halal markets and ethnic associations are dotting the map. Especially around the area where Mohamad Barkat murdered a police officer. School districts are spending a fortune dealing with non-English speakers, primarily Somalis and Kurds, and a great deal of money goes to subsidize Headstart and food stamps.

Gangs proliferate trafficking in drugs and prostitution. And worse crimes appear and disappear.

Omar Mohamed Kalmio, a Somali refugee who shot and killed his American Sioux girlfriend, her mother, brother and another family member in nearby Minot, is still fighting his life sentence. Kalmio should have been in ICE custody after he and a group of Somalis had previously stabbed a man in the back with a knife.

In Grand Forks, Hawo Osman Ahmed, had allegedly threatened women with a knife. “Come over here I’m going to cut you,” she had warned, “I’m going to slice your neck.”

“I feel like I’m a Muslim woman who’s being attacked because I am a Muslim woman living in Grand Forks,” she later complained.

Authorities generally steer clear of such cases if they know what’s good for them. The prosecution of a sex trafficking ring by the Somali Outlaws gang across the country which allegedly involved girls as young as twelve was shut down by federal authorities, advocates and political pressure amid claims of racism, Islamophobia and cultural differences .

“We are heartbroken by this tragic loss,” Gov. Burgum said in response to the Somali act of violence that killed one police officer and wounded two others. “We also pray for the full recovery of the officers and civilian who were wounded in this horrible incident.”

‘Horrible incidents’ like these could be averted by ending refugee resettlement.

Gov. Burgum refused to end refugee resettlement when he had the opportunity to do so. The blood of the victims of refugee resettlement are on the hands of those who enable it.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

RELATED ARTICLES:

FARGO “AMBUSH”: Muslim Migrant Who Who Shot 4 Cops Had 1,800 Rounds of Ammo, “Absolute Arsenal,” Was Planning a Jihad Massacre at Street Fair

Fargo: Muslim shooter had 1,800 rounds of ammo, was apparently planning a jihad massacre at street fair

Over 541,000 migrants welcomed into America through its parole pipeline

UK: Man converted to Islam in jail, plotted assault rifle jihad attack on Queen’s funeral 

Iraq: Muslims storm Swedish embassy and set it on fire in protest against Qur’an burning

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Lawsuit Challenges the Constitutionality of Common Core in North Dakota

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Responding to the concerns of parents and teachers over the Common Core State Standards and the Federal government’s control of curriculum nationwide, the Thomas More Law Center announced today that it has joined in filing a lawsuit against North Dakota’s governor, state superintendent and other state officials.  The lawsuit claims that North Dakota’s participation in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (“SBAC”) and its implementation of Common Core is unconstitutional and violates several federal laws that prohibit federal control of our public schools and their curriculum.

Lawsuit by the Thomas More Law Center Challenges the Constitutionality of Common Core in North Dakota

The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, teamed-up with attorney D. John Sauer of the St Louis, MO firm, Clark & Sauer, to file the lawsuit. This lawsuit follows Sauer’s success in stopping Missouri’s membership in SBAC on similar grounds.  Bismarck, ND Attorney, Arnold Fleck, has agreed to assist in the lawsuit as local counsel.

Plaintiffs in the case, who are all North Dakota residents and state taxpayers, include: Steve Cates, Catherine Cartier, Charles Cartier, and Robert Skarphol, who is also an elected member of the North Dakota House of Representatives.

The Compact Clause of the United States Constitution provides that “[n]o state shall, without the consent of Congress . . . enter into any agreement or compact with another state.” As the Smarter Balanced Consortium is an interstate compact which Congress did not authorize, its existence is a violation of the Constitution. Accordingly, North Dakota’s membership in the Consortium and membership fee payments of over a half million dollars per year, equate to participation in and funding of an illegal entity.

 In addition to violations of the Compact Clause, SBAC also violates laws enacted by Congress.  For nearly fifty years, federal statutes have prohibited the Federal Government—and, in particular, the federal Department of Education—from controlling educational policy, including curriculum decisions and educational-assessment programs in elementary and secondary education.

Although an increasing number of governors and state legislatures have expressed reservations about Common Core, a majority of states still belong to either SBAC or the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (“PARCC”), both directed by the Federal Government.

North Dakota’s agreement to participate in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium leaves North Dakota schools little choice but to align their curriculum to meet the imposed national standards and assessments, allowing the federal Department of Education to effectively control public education in North Dakota.

Click here to read the full complaint

Moreover, mounting criticism by parents, teachers, and a growing number of political leaders, has prompted SBAC, PARCC and the federal Department of Education to make it difficult to withdraw from participation in a testing Consortium and statewide testing by threatening increased restrictions and loss of federal funding. The threat of loss of federal funding helped drive a growing controversy between parents and school administrators over parental opt-outs and test refusal.

Across the country, many parents, after often drawn-out battles, still saw their children subjected to “sit-and-stare” policies; suspensions; loss of honors, class trips, and athletic participation; or refused admittance to the classroom as a result of the opt-out. “Sit-and-stare” is a practice of certain school districts forbidding students who opt-out of testing from working on any schoolwork during testing hours and requiring that the students do nothing and possess no materials.  The students must sit in total silence and do nothing while the testing takes place.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented on the federalized control of public education: “States have surrendered their sovereignty over public education in exchange for federal dollars.  Membership in SBAC requires the adoption of Common Core; and as the standards are Common Core and the exams are Common Core, so the local curriculum must also be Common Core.”

The testing associated with Common Core and created by SBAC, and its companion consortium PARCC, remains one of the most contentious issues between parents and educators. The tests have been heavily criticized for issues ranging from their lack of validity and transparency to appropriateness and data collection, as well as the amount of stress they inflict upon students and teachers.

 The new wave of testing ushered in by SBAC and PARCC has sparked a national opt-out movement as students, teachers and administrators grapple with the heavy burden created by these assessments. As schools and teachers are evaluated based on these exams, the exam is increasingly becoming the only curriculum.

As a result, the Thomas More Law Center previously developed a Test Refusal and Student Privacy Protection Form and a Common Core Resource Page as a general reference and guide for concerned parents and individuals.

In a nutshell, SBAC’s existence, purpose, function, activities, governance, and manner of operation violates the Compact Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and federal statutes guaranteeing state and local control of curriculum, programs of instruction, and related matters in public schools.